Response dated 10 March 2026
To: Colleen Nyce, Chair, Northern Health Board and Ciro Panessa, President and CEO, Northern Health
Thank you for your letter dated January 30, which was a response to the open letter that I sent you. Since receiving it, Tumbler Ridge has experienced a mass-shooting tragedy of unimaginable gravity, and the community is doing its best to face the aftermath. I take some consolation in the fact that the ER was open for business at the time of the crisis. The heroic actions of the medical team working in the ER in Tumbler Ridge demonstrate the value of keeping our ER open and the importance of having local physicians, nurse practitioners and nurses on call at all times. A positive thing that I take from your message is that you are ready for the engagement of a third-party facilitator to bridge the impasse that has developed between us.
You mention the “broad range of clinical perspectives” and the “diversity of professional opinions” that you obtained prior to deciding to terminate after-hours and weekend care in Tumbler Ridge. You also state that these clinicians had “different experiences and advice” than mine. I ask you again to please provide the names of those clinicians who provided you with this advice, along with what, precisely, this advice was. The Tumbler Ridge Mayor and Council, and Tumbler Ridge residents, have a right to know who persuaded you to take this course, and what they said to persuade you that this was a good thing for Tumbler Ridge. Anonymous advice is as meaningless as anonymous Facebook posts, and you are of course welcome to share my own medical opinion (that I provided to you in December 2025) as you see fit.
You mention that you strive to be as inclusive as possible. Indeed, that is what I would expect and hope for from a Health Authority. While I don’t know whom Northern Health sought advice from and listened to (hence the above request), I do know whom you did NOT approach for advice back in the summer of 2025: for example, the Mayor and Council of Tumbler Ridge, and the South Peace Division of Family Practice. Our lived experience is therefore of a Health Authority that is not inclusive.
Your suggestion that the public discourse is making recruitment and retention of professionals more difficult is inaccurate. We pointed out to Northern Health back in September that the idea that the ER after-hours closure would be conducive to recruitment and retention was wishful thinking. This has been borne out, and my perspective is that the manner in which the community has resisted what has been has been foisted on it through your actions is seen by other communities as an inspiring model.
I ask you again to listen to what community leaders and members are telling you, and to follow your own policies in this regard. I hope that we can agree on the importance of a local ER that is never closed.
